Freya Snow Pup Trilogy

by L. C. Mawson

  Amber nodded. “I’m not even sure your mother knew. Identities can be difficult to discern in the Shadow Realm.”

  Freya frowned as her stomach churned. After seeing how happy Alice was at finding her aunt, Freya’s determination to feel the same renewed.

  “But there has to be some way to find him, right? Some spell or other magic?”

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Amber said as she crossed her arms across her chest.

  “Why not?”

  “Your mother was clear she didn’t want to find him. She could have called to him herself when she was captured by the Humans, and she chose to escape on her own. I can think of very few reasons why she would risk that, and none of them are good.”

  “Well, who’s to say she was right? And she’s not here now. We are. And I have no one, Amber.”

  “You have Margaret and Ryan.”

  “Who will send me back, eventually. I’m a teenager, Amber. Teenagers don’t get adopted.”

  “You have me.”

  “You’re a ghost! You’ve said yourself you’re not sure how long you can keep possessing Ms Pearson. What happens when you can’t help me anymore? Please, Amber, I need to know.”

  “And I need to respect your mother’s wishes!”

  Freya’s throat closed up, her eyes stinging with tears. “So you really won’t help me?” she choked.

  Amber shook her head. “I’m sorry, Freya, I can’t.”

  Freya shook her head, hurrying forward, straight through Amber.

  “Freya, please,” Amber said, appearing in front of her.

  “Go away,” Freya mumbled, a stray tear escaping down her cheek.

  “Freya, come on. Let’s talk about it.”

  “I said go away!”

  With that, Amber disappeared, and Freya let out a sigh of relief that sounded too much like a sob for her liking.

  Chapter Eight

  Freya didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that Amber hadn’t reappeared by the time half term came to an end.

  On the one hand, she really didn’t want to talk with her. She was still angry about her refusing to help her find her father, and she doubted that anger would fade unless Amber changed her mind upon her return. She still needed space, and the fact Amber seemed to recognise that was a nice change from Freya’s usual interactions with adults.

  But then, it was a pretty drastic change from her usual interactions with adults. Adults never understood she sometimes needed time to mull things over on her own. They were always pushing, demanding Freya acquiesce to whatever they wanted. Or at least put on a happy face for them.

  Which led to her worry. What if she had pissed Amber off? She didn’t expect her to be happy about being yelled at, but she would have expected her to get over that within a couple of days. Even if she only returned to hear that Freya would let the whole thing go.

  With Amber’s absence, Freya decided to test her powers on her own terms. She wanted to see if Alice was right about how much power she potentially had.

  She was still pretty cautious. Amber’s warnings hadn’t been completely spurned. Freya managed to increase both her control and stamina, being able to use her powers for over ten minutes straight before feeling too tired to continue, but that was as far as she got. She hadn’t discovered any new aspect to her powers, or anything like that.

  As she headed downstairs on Monday morning, however, she was particularly glad she increased her control as much as she had. Margaret told her to switch over the washing in the machine over to the dryer the night before, and Freya had forgotten. So, that morning, she found herself pulling a still-wet jumper from the dryer and drawing the water from it.

  At least these powers are good for something, Freya thought to herself as she pulled on her newly dry jumper.

  “Oh good,” Margaret said as Freya headed back out of the utility room. “You had a clean jumper left. I worried they were all in the wash.”

  Freya’s stomach clenched. “I’m sorry, I forgot to put it all in the dryer. I’ve put them in now.”

  Margaret nodded. “Just make sure you don’t forget again.”

  Freya knew, unequivocally, that she would forget to do chores in the future. She was terrible at remembering to remember things. But pointing that out wouldn’t lead to anything good, so she stayed silent.

  “You left your homework on the coffee table,” Margaret told her.

  “Thanks,” Freya said before rushing into the living room to grab it, running back into the kitchen to put it into her backpack.

  “So,” Margaret said as she finished making her morning coffee, “are you excited to see Damon again?”

  “Well, yeah. He’s my friend. Why?”

  “I... I was just wondering... Well, I was wondering if you and I needed to have a certain talk...”

  Freya frowned for a moment, wondering what she meant, before turning a deep shade of red as she put two and two together.

  “You- I- We’re not dating! And even if we were,” she picked up her pill packet, giving it a wave, “I would be safe.” She looked at the packet, realising she hadn’t taken it that morning, popping it and taking it dry. She’d gotten used to taking pills dry whenever she remembered to take them, otherwise she risked forgetting while making herself a glass of water.

  Margaret raised an eyebrow. “You know that only works in one capacity, right?”

  “Yes, I didn’t mean...” Freya trailed off, her mind refusing to supply her with a follow up phrase that wasn’t “I was going to ride some dude bareback”, which she was not going to say to her foster mother.

  “Anyway,” Freya continued, “it doesn’t matter, because Damon and I are just friends.”

  Margaret raised her eyebrow once more. “You blush when you talk about him.”

  Freya’s blush deepened. “I do not!”

  Margaret just smiled, shaking her head. “Alright, whatever you say...”

  AS MUCH AS, WHEN FREYA left the house, she felt as if she had won the conversation with Margaret, she immediately blushed when she met Damon at the school’s front gates.

  Her breath caught in her throat as her mind started running to situations with him that might have made Margaret’s talk pertinent...

  She mentally chastised herself for thinking that way about her friend, but it did nothing to reduce the colour of her face.

  Thankfully, she had been running late, so she barely had time to say “Hi,” before she had to run to her form room. She spent most of registration trying her best not to chew her pencil. It was gross, but it was a difficult habit to break, given that she had RS first. She had no idea how Amber would react to her in her class.

  Of course, when she got to Ms Pearson’s classroom, no one was there.

  Everyone sat down in their regular seat, assuming she was simply running late. Though, Freya knew better. Ms Pearson had her form in this classroom every morning. She shouldn’t have had a reason to be anywhere else. Freya could think of several reasons why she would have darted out of the classroom for five minutes, but as the clock ticked over to ten past nine, all of them seemed to fall away.

  The other kids in the class seemed to decide the lack of teacher meant a party; each one seemingly trying to out-do their own reckless show-off behaviour. Freya kept her nose firmly in her manga, doing her best not to completely ruin her pencil.

  Eventually Mrs Baum, a substitute teacher Freya had had for maths once, entered the room, silencing the class.

  “Alright,” she said as she handed out textbooks. “There are practice questions at the back of each chapter. Work your way through as many as you can before the end of the lesson.”

  Freya did her best to supress her anxiety, which was urging her to keep her hands plastered to her sides. She instead raised her hand.

  “Miss?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Where’s Ms Pearson?”

  Mrs Baum shot her a look that very much said “mind your own business
,” before saying “She’s ill. I’ll be taking over for her today.” Her tone was firm, clearly discouraging any further questions.

  Freya decided not to try asking any more, trying to focus her attention on her work. Though her mind kept wandering to where Amber might be. Freya supposed the body she possessed might have gotten ill, but Freya figured there must be magical cures for that sort of thing. Not to mention, there was nothing stopping Amber from visiting her in ghost form to warn her. No matter how angry she was with her, Freya couldn’t imagine Amber completely blanking her.

  So where was she?

  “I ASSUME YOU HAVE ALL met at least once with your groups over half term to rehearse your scene. Remember, there is only a week left before the performances and I don’t want anyone still on script.”

  That yanked Freya out of her now-perpetual daze.

  “You know,” Damon said as he leaned closer to her, “I never thought I would be the annoying one about this, but we should probably meet up.”

  Freya nodded. “Sorry, I’ve been distracted.”

  “By what?”

  Freya looked away, her hands tightening into fists as she tried to come up with some kind of explanation.

  “Hey, you do not have to tell me,” Damon told her softly. “After all, even friends sometimes have secrets, right?”

  Freya nodded with a small smile. “Right.”

  “Anyway, we should probably swap phone numbers. So we can stay in touch, I mean.”

  Freya nodded once more, not wanting to bring up Facebook. If Damon had forgotten they could use it to contact each other over half term, she would pretend that she had as well. It beat admitting she’d been too scared to message him.

  She tapped her phone to his, exchanging their numbers. Even if it was second hand, Freya very much loved her new phone.

  “Are you free tonight?” Damon asked. “We could rehearse, and then maybe binge-watch that show you were talking about the other day? Firefly? I watched the first episode, and it was great!”

  Freya smiled. “Don’t say that or I’ll start recommending shows to you left and right.”

  “Well, they have all been great so far, so I would not complain.”

  Freya shook her head. She wanted to take that as an invitation to be completely open with sharing the things she loved, but years of experience had taught her that her enthusiasm was too intense to ever be valued.

  “I can’t do tonight,” Freya said. “It’ll be too short notice for my foster parents. And what about your uncle? Won’t he be annoyed at you bringing someone home without warning?”

  “No. He made it clear I may bring whoever I want home whenever. I think he wants to make it as easy as possible for me to make friends.”

  Freya nodded as it occurred to her she really didn’t know all that much about Damon’s uncle. “You don’t really talk about your family.”

  Damon shrugged, looking away. “I... Being here, with you, is like an escape from... I do not want to ruin that.”

  Freya frowned, not understanding.

  Her confusion must have been clear because he sighed.

  “But I suppose that is not fair to either of us, is it? The more secrets I keep... I would rather not keep the ones I do not have to.”

  “So?” she asked, extremely confused.

  “I do not talk about my family because it is not a pleasant topic. My mother died when I was a baby, and my father... My aunt and uncle had no idea I even existed until recently, and as soon as they did, they immediately got me away from my father. He is... He is not a nice man.”

  Freya nodded, in what she hoped was a sympathetic manner. She didn’t know how else to respond.

  “Anyway, now I live with my uncle, and my aunt and her husband make sure I have everything I need.”

  Freya frowned. “It’s still weird you don’t call your aunt’s husband ‘uncle’.”

  Damon looked sheepish. “He... He is a rather powerful man. It would be strange for me to refer to him in such familial terms.”

  “Even though you’re technically family?”

  “Technically would be the operative word there.” He picked up his pen, bringing forward his work book.

  Freya took the sudden enthusiasm for his school work as a sign that he wanted to change the subject.

  “How about tomorrow? For the rehearsal, I mean?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Tomorrow it is.”

  BY THE TIME THE FINAL bell of the day rang, Freya had completely decimated her pencil.

  There was no sign of Amber.

  Freya headed back to her classroom. Maybe Amber hadn’t wanted to appear in ghost form in front of everyone else just in case Freya reacted to her.

  The classroom was empty and unlocked, so Freya headed in, sitting down on one of the desks before pulling out her phone and proceeding to wait.

  “Hey, Ms Pearson isn’t here,” a voice called from the corridor after several minutes.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” Freya muttered as she looked up to see Damon’s music teacher, Mr Carlton, standing outside the door. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “Probably not soon,” he said with a shrug. “She took ill over half term. Apparently she didn’t turn her TV off in her flat all night. A neighbour complained to the landlord, and he found her unconscious. She hasn’t woken up since.”

  “When was this?”

  He shrugged once more. “She went to the hospital on Thursday, I think.”

  Freya’s blood chilled as she got up off the desk. Mr Carlton seemed to take that as a sign she was leaving and headed off.

  Thursday.

  Freya had last seen Amber on Wednesday.

  If Ms Pearson had never woken up, it sounded as if Amber never returned to her body.

  So where was she?

  Go away, she told her mentor.

  But there was no way that could have done anything, was there? Just because Amber was tied to Freya, didn’t mean some heated words would banish her...

  Unless it did.

  Freya picked up her bag. She wasn’t going to get any answers by sitting still.

  She glanced to the desk just as she was leaving, remembering Amber kept her mother’s pendant in there. What if she used it to store other magical items in there as well? There could be something that would help Freya track her down.

  Freya groaned as she approached the desk, seeing one of the drawers was locked. She remembered the key Amber kept around her neck, allowing her access.

  Freya quickly searched through the other drawers, finding various textbooks and confiscated odds and ends, but no spare key.

  She glared at the lock, wishing she knew some kind of lock-picking spell. All she had was control of water. She supposed she could pick the lock the Human way, but she didn’t have any hairpins.

  Freya smiled as a thought struck her. She didn’t necessarily need a hairpin. Not if she could mimic the effect she needed by controlling and freezing water in the correct way.

  She brought out her phone, quickly searching how to pick locks. She opened an incognito tab, but she was still pretty sure her search might end up with her on some kind of watch-list...

  As soon as she had the information she needed, Freya drew a thin stream of water from her water bottle. She closed her eyes, feeling with the water. She carefully pushed, pulled, and froze at just the right times, and to her relief, the drawer soon clicked open.

  Freya gave it a yank, hoping to find something of use.

  But the only item contained within was a notebook.

  Freya quickly picked up the book, rifling through the pages. Most were filled with strange spirals or scratchy markings that she couldn’t decipher. Almost at the middle of the book, however, was a page with writing in English, entitled Invisibility Glamour - Modified.

  Freya gave a sigh of relief, sticking the book into her bag before heading home.

  FREYA ALMOST RAN BACK home, taking the stairs up to her room two at a time.


  She closed her bedroom door behind her, before throwing her bag onto her bed, opening it to find Amber’s notebook.

  This time, she didn’t rifle through the pages so quickly. Instead, she took her time, making sure she didn’t miss anything. Every page of the notebook was crammed with ink, creating mosaics of unfamiliar patterns and languages.

  It still took until the middle of the book for Freya to find anything in English. The first thing she found was tucked away in the upper corner of the page, in Amber’s familiar handwriting.

  Short-term memory spell

  I have yet to find a memory spell I have gotten along with. But Rosaline assures me this is the most simple. I have yet to manage it, but she is sure it is simply a matter of time.

  Incantation: Auferbulum

  Before the incantation is spoken aloud, the caster must completely clear the mind. If they are thinking about anything, those thoughts can get tied up in the spell and stop the amnesia from taking hold. The spell, when working correctly, should erase the last few moments of the subject’s memory. Now if I could only get it work...

  Freya continued to flick through the book, but found nothing to help her find Amber. The notebook appeared to be a collection of stray pieces of magical knowledge Amber had collected over the years. Early pages contained references to Amber’s husband and son, as well as someone called Rosaline, who appeared to have been some kind of mentor to Amber. One of the final pages talked about how Amber had been concerned about how to go about training someone who had shown a preference for fire when they had broken through. As soon as the page referred to Amber’s student as “Lily”, Freya closed the book.

  After a few moments, however, Freya opened the book once more, determined to double check for any clue as to where Amber might be. But her efforts were interrupted by a knock at her door.

  “Come in,” Freya called.

  Margaret opened the door. “I was just wondering what you wanted for tea. Ryan is going to make pasta later, but there’s a pizza in the fridge if you want something now.”

  “Pasta will be fine,” Freya replied.